How green the garden was. How absolutely green.
Posting for The Sandy Chronicles’ Friendly Friday Challenge.
She loved the experimental meadows in the back, which have a somewhat unkempt look.
Oxford Botanic Garden, Late May
June 23, 2022 at 10:07 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: England, Friendly Friday, Gardens, Oxford, photo challenge, spring
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge (CFFC): Waterscapes
June 22, 2022 at 1:28 am (destinations, Family, Flowers, Links, Lists, Places, plans, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: blogs, California, Cee Neuner, CFFC, England, Filoli, Gardens, inspirations, northern California, Oxford, photo challenge
This week’s CFFC is: LANDSCAPES or WATERSCAPES.
Self has lately been thinking of adding a water feature to her garden (though, she is worried about Lucia falling in, so maybe not until she learns to swim). Here are examples from various gardens she has visited in the past month:
- The Glasshouses, Oxford University Botanic Garden
- Central Fountain, Oxford University Botanic Garden
- Central Courtyard, Christchurch, Oxford University
- Filoli Gardens, Woodside, California
Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Green
June 17, 2022 at 4:10 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: blogs, England, Fridays, Oxford, photo challenge, summer
Self is joining a new photo challenge: Friendly Friday, by The Sandy Chronicles.
This week’s prompt is GREEN.
The picture below is of the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire, which she visited for the first time in early June.
Share Your Desktop – June 2022
June 16, 2022 at 6:25 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: blogs, Bloomsbury, England, grief, London, memories, photo challenge, transitions
Self just returned from a loooong trip overseas: Northern Ireland, London, and Oxford. It was her first overseas trip in three years.
In 2020, The Penn Club closed its doors forever, ending 100 years in its Bloomsbury location. Self mourned! This building was her home-away-from-home whenever she was in London. A haven. Just off Russell Square.
As soon as she got to London, in early May, she rushed to Bedford Place. She found that the building remained unchanged: the red door even seemed freshly painted. She walked right up to the door and peered through the glass: she saw the narrow lobby, the stairs leading to the upper floors.
She took a picture of the main entrance: who knows if it will still be there, the next time she’s in London:
Posting this for Clare’s Cosmos’ Share Your Desktop Challenge.
Cee’s Midweek Madness Challenge (CMMC), 3rd Wednesday in June, 2022
June 15, 2022 at 3:50 pm (destinations, Explorers, Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Surprises, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: blogs, Cee Neuner, CMMC, England, history, London, memories, photo challenge, spring
This week’s CMMC is: Pick a topic from Cee’s photo.
Possible topics frame within a photo, window, square, silhouette, restaurant, bushes, trees, table chair, green, red, brown, parked, vehicles, looking through, etc. What else can you come up with?
Have fun this week.
Topics self picked up on: trees, green, red
She took this picture at the end of May. She was on a walk with Old Map Man. We met at Trafalgar Square and walked to the foot of the Jubilee Bridge on the Victoria Embankment.
Self loves these embankments. Her love of London grew with her awareness of them: Southbank because of the Millenium Bridge, anchored at one end by the Tate Modern and at the other by a narrow funnel to St. Paul’s.
Recently, she’s become more aware of the Victoria Embankment: more staid than Southbank, but so historic! Samuel Pepys’s house is on the Victoria Embankment.
Self wondered aloud how old these embankments were. Old Map Man said, mid-19th century. Wow! All this time, she thought they were constructions of modern London.
Later, it began to POUR, so the walk had to end rather abruptly.
Flower of the Day (FOTD): English Roses
June 14, 2022 at 4:31 am (destinations, Flowers, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, England, Flower of the Day, Garden, Mondays, Oxford, photo challenge
Self took these pictures at the Oxford Botanic Garden, which she visited in May. What she loves about the location is that, all around and across the street, are very old buildings. The roses are grouped by color: here pink, there orange; here yellow, there white.
Posting these for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day Challenge:
Which Way Photo Challenge: 2nd Sunday in June, 2022
June 12, 2022 at 3:48 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: blogs, England, Garden, Oxford, photo challenge
alive and trekking‘s Which Way Photo Challenge is another fun one; it’s been a couple of months since she last joined.
The picture below was taken end of May, in the Oxford University Botanical Garden
Ruth Asawa at Modern Art Oxford
June 11, 2022 at 10:46 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: art, England, exhibits, museum, opportunities, Oxford, photo challenge, Saturdays, summer
There is a permanent installation of San Francisco artist Ruth Asawa at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Just happened to be in Oxford when the Museum of Modern Art did a show on her, in May. Saw the exhibit with two American friends, Amy and Sam. In one word, stunning.
Posting for Travel With Intent’s Six Word Saturday Challenge.
City Sonnet’s Colors and Letters Challenge, June 9
June 9, 2022 at 6:03 pm (destinations, Flowers, Links, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: citysonnet, East London, England, London, photo challenge, summer
Today’s prompt is: VIBRANT RED.
See how to join citysonnet’s colors and letters challenge, here.
Self’s photo is: Window Box, East London (near Bethnal Green)
Water, Water Everywhere: Thames River (View from Donnington Bridge During the Annual Oxford Crew Races)
June 7, 2022 at 9:16 am (Links, Lists, Places, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: England, Events, favorites, London, Oxford, photo challenge, Water Water Everywhere
Thanks to Jez for hosting the Water, Water Everywhere Challenge.
Self loves the lore of the Thames. She loves the Embankments in London: Southbank, with the National Theatre and Waterloo Station and the Tate Modern. And the Victoria Embankment, with the Jubilee Bridge and that view of the London Eye. The Thames has quite a different aspect in Oxford. There, it has boats and punts and rowers.
There’s a big event that occurs annually, end of May: the crew races where teams from all the Oxford colleges compete against each other. This was the vantage point from Donnington Bridge.
She had no idea until that day that crew was so grueling. As the boats skimmed beneath the bridge, she could hear grunts. Loud grunts. Which was so at odds with the graceful way the boats skim the water. There are shouts, too, from a person at the front of the boat (the one who steers, holding two lines) who has a whistle and keeps up a constant stream of encouraging cries like “Come on!” She’s sorry that the boats were moving so fast (they cleared the bridge in seconds) that, even though she pointed her camera straight down into the individual boats, everything was really blurred.
Kanlaon 